


Not My Jurisdiction

by idelthoughts



Series: Procedurals of New York [1]
Category: Elementary (TV), Forever (TV)
Genre: Crime Scenes, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fandom Stocking 2016, Gen, Immortality, Not-Quite Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9290711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: Joan Watson swore she'd seen that medical examiner somewhere before.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ilien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilien/gifts).



> Happy fandom_stocking time, ilien! Thanks for giving me an excuse to continue my mission to crossover ALL the police procedurals.

The NYPD guarded the borders of their precinct territory like alley cats on patrol. Joan expected more tolerance within their own ranks, but usually it caused the same friction as any cross-jurisdictional investigation.

However, Sherlock’s prediction of a third body matching the previous two they’d found came true inside two days. He elected Joan their emissary as soon as the call came over the police scanner he’d been monitoring day and night, forcing her coat and scarf on her as he thrust her out the door with cheery best wishes for her foray into not-quite-enemy territory.

A flash of her credentials got her past the barricades of yellow tape and uniformed officers, and she made her way into the alley where the OCME team and two detectives surveyed the scene.

“Smothered, garrotted, then stabbed. Nasty business.” The medical examiner crouched over the body, back to Joan. His voice tripped a memory, an old one, but she failed to place it.

“What, he couldn’t make up his mind on what to pick?” said the detective standing next to him, his vocal cadence and attitude marking him as one of those guys filling the family tradition of joining the NYPD like Dad and Grandpa before him. “Criminals these days, so indecisive.”

Joan cleared her throat and drew the attention of the detective. She held out her credentials once more.

“Joan Watson, I’m a consultant working with Captain Gregson’s department. Your body matches the description of a string of homicides we’ve been investigating.”

“Detective Martinez.” Martinez accepted Joan’s hand and shook it. “That was fast. We just got here.”

“My partner expected another body, and we heard the call on the…” The medical examiner was pulling off his gloves as he stood, turning to listen to the conversation, and Joan was so taken aback when she caught sight of his face that she stopped mid-sentence. “Doctor Morgan?”

Martinez looked over her shoulder between them, a puzzled smile covering her confusion.

“You moonlighting for other precincts, Henry?”

“Er, no.” Dr. Morgan was staring at Joan as though trying to place her. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Mercy Hospital. Pathology rotation.”

And in that instant, she could see the connection click—followed hard upon by the same realization Joan’d had that ground her to a halt: twenty years was a long time. Dr. Morgan could have stepped straight through a doorway from her memory.

“Sorry, not me. Odd coincidence. Jo, I’ll meet you at the morgue once I’ve had a chance to examine the body further. I’ll arrange transport.”

It didn’t take Sherlock’s training to pick up the very, very poor lie. Even Detective Martinez and her partner goggled at him and his flustered response. Dr. Morgan ducked away with clumsy, graceless speed, scampering to the OCME team to speak with them.

Joan brushed aside the unease, coming back to the matter at hand.

“I hoped to get the body transferred to our precinct. Think we can work it out? Like I said, we’ve got two matching this M.O. already, and there’s no point redoing the work.”

Martinez had a line between her brows, lips parted as though she wanted to call after Morgan as he retreated. After a second she shook her head and refocused on Joan.

“I’ll have to call it in to my lieutenant,” Martinez said, but there was no territorial hostility, even though her partner was bristling behind her. She seemed to notice it as she pulled out her cell phone. “Oh, ease up, Hanson. We’ve got three other cases burning down our door. If they want it, they can have it.”

“It’s the principle, Jo,” Hanson grumbled, but he let it go.

“Excuse me,” Martinez said, holding up a finger to Joan, and then turning away. “Yeah, Lieu, we’ve got a little situation here.”

Martinez left, and Hanson turned to another of the crime scene techs taking photos, leaving Joan momentarily to her own devices. She looked up to see Dr. Morgan, head lowered, hurrying from the alleyway. Too curious to let it pass, Joan jogged after him.

“Doctor Morgan? Doctor Morgan, wait!”

Morgan, caught up in the barrier of police blocking off the alleyway, was delayed long enough that Joan caught up to him. He turned back to her, back to the tape like a cornered animal. He gave her a polite smile and jerky nod, his waxy smile a very poor cover for his panic.

If she hadn’t been suspicious before, she was now.

“So you do know who I am.”

“No—no, I’m sorry I don’t —“

“Why are you lying?” she pressed.

Joan had a sharp recollection even before Sherlock’s memory tricks honed her observations. The mannerisms and speech, along with the unchanged face, were all the same as the Doctor Henry Morgan she’d trained alongside twenty years ago—eerily so. At the time, he’d been updating his degree with a specialization in pathology, getting to know “the latest tricks of the trade,” as he’d put it. A strange, antiquated man, whose unmatched lexical knowledge of medicine occasionally seemed so dated it was like he’d walked out of the past.

Walking out of the past was apparently Dr. Morgan’s specialty.

“Ms Watson,” Morgan stopped as his voice broke. He licked his lips and restarted, calmer. “Even if I were lying, which I am not, there’s little to be gained with your questions. I don’t have any answers for you. Now, I have to go.”

Morgan pressed his lips together in a thin line, and something about the clammed up refusal made her back down. He wasn’t a criminal, and he’d not been a friend, despite being collegial and courteous in their brief association. He was a curiosity, true—but still a man. He deserved his privacy, if that’s what he wanted.

“Right.” It took a great deal of self-control to relinquish the pursuit of the answers he claimed not to have, but she smiled and took a step back. “Nice to see you again, I guess.”

He said nothing. After a harried inspection of her face, he gave her a formal little bow and fled to disappear into the New York foot traffic.

Behind her, the OCME team was loading up the body. Martinez was still on the phone negotiating with her lieutenant, and Joan’s chance of swinging this thing in their favour was disappearing by the second. Reluctantly she returned to the scene, holding up one hand and calling out to delay them as she dialled Gregson with the other, in the hopes he could smooth the way with a few phone calls.

But tonight, she’d look into Doctor Morgan.

She never could let a mystery lie.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's just politely ignore the fact that Sherlock and Joan work at the same fictional 11th Precinct as Jo Martinez and Co.


End file.
